Three teams gaining spots advanced to nationals after last week’s action at the Granite Curling Club.
The Brady Clark rink (Brady Clark, Cristin Clark, Leon Romaniuk and Bev Walter) defeated the Greg Romaniuk rink (Greg Romaniuk, Tammy Lehto, Darren Lehto and Lisa Rugen) 6-1 on Jan. 14 to capture the Washington State Mixed Curling title.
Clark won the first game 8-6 on Saturday night, but Team Romaniuk came back to win the evening draw 10-5, forcing Sunday’s decisive game. Brady Clark and his wife, Cristin Clark, are two-time defending U.S. Mixed Curling Champions, and have won mixed nationals four of the last five years. They will look to make it three titles in a row at the 2007 Mixed Nationals which takes place at the Grafton Curling Club March 17-24 in Grafton, North Dakota.
The Ari-Krasik Geiger rink (Ari Krasik-Geiger, Zach Radmer, Jon Chartrand and Bret Nordlund) defeated the Ashley Carson rink (Chris Pleasants, Ashley Carson, Katie Higgins and Katy Sharpe) 7-4 and 7-5 on Saturday to win the Washington State College Curling Championship.
Representing the University of Washington, the Krasik-Geiger rink won the National College tournament in 2006, and will try to make it three straight College Nationals victories for the University of Washington.
The Carson rink, representing Edmonds Community College, played valiantly in losing two close games. In the first game, Krasik-Geiger looked to be in total control with a one-point lead in the final end with four of his red rocks counting for points. Ashley Carson made the shot of the tournament with a rare quadruple takeout, which drew a thunderous applause from the crowd and put her team back in the game.
Krasik-Geiger kept his composure throwing skips rocks, and was able to steal one point for the victory. The 6 p.m. draw also came down to the last end, but once again, Krasik-Geiger was able to hold the lead and his team will be heading to Chicago for College Nationals for the second consecutive year.
The Lyle Sieg rink (Lyle Sieg, Christina Pastula, Brannon Wells and Candace Seip) will represent the MoPac (Mountain Pacific) region at the 2007 US Mixed National Championship after two victories over the Arnie Iwanick rink (Arnie Iwanick, Gabrielle Coleman, Kerry Baskin and Nicole Way) on Saturday. Sieg, from Castro Valley, CA, led his team to a tight 6-5 victory on Saturday afternoon, then won the MoPac Mixed title with a 7-3 victory over Iwanick, who curls out of Portland’s Evergreen Curling Club.
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